China's electricity market restructuring and technology mandates: Plant-level evidence for changing operational efficiency

- We use a unique panel dataset for hundreds of power plants from 1997 to 2010.
- Semi-parametric and parametric methods were used to ensure robust results.
- The unbundling reform significantly improves the efficiency of China's power plants.
- But more importantly, technology mandates have contributed even more.
- This one-off gain from mandates has important implications for long term planning.

China's electricity sector has experienced substantial efficiency improvement during the last one and a half decades. The recent literature has mostly attributed the efficiency improvement to the 2002 unbundling reform with little attention paid to the large scale retrofitting process introduced by technology mandates. Using a unique panel dataset for hundreds of power plants from 1997 to 2010, we are able to examine the contributions from technology mandates and market restructuring. We confirm the significant contributions from the unbundling reform but more importantly, technology mandates have contributed at least half of the observed efficiency improvement during this period. The results have significant implications for efficiency and demand forecast in the future.